Asteroid a Hoax?

Anne Onymus (get it? hehe!) over at LowEndMac is hypothesizing that the entire Asteroid fiasco was all part of an evil Apple plan to quash rumor sites. The assumption is based on the fact that two years after the Asteroid leak, Apple still hasn't released a GarageBand breakout box. If Apple had actually put work into Asteroid, surely Jobs wouldn't be so petty as to shut down the entire project because of a leak? (Jobs is rumored to have pulled some product announcements at the last minute during MWSF2006 as a way of punishing the development teams for the leak.) Despite the fact that Apple's competitors then knew what was brewing in Cupertino, the company still had a good head start, and could surely have pushed the product to market well before anyone else. Anne postulates that Apple never had the slightest intention to release Asteroid, and created the product for the precise purpose of the leak. After the leak, Apple expected it would be a piece of cake to squash the rumor mill with a flood of law suits requesting the names of the mole. Instead, the EFF took over the case of the rumor sites, and a federal district court recently ruled that online journalists have all the rights and protections as the traditional media, effectively destroying Apple's claims.

While an interesting idea, I think LowEndMac might have the paranoia meter set a bit high this week. Apple may be secretive, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm sticking with Occam's razor.